How to Receive More Love and Respect

Today’s words of wisdom are very personal, from a man I greatly respect and admire, my grandfather.

When we spoke a couple of days ago, I shared with him that I am currently visiting my in-laws, and he was very happy to hear that we were all having a great time together as a family. He also shared these words of wisdom with me:

“Always give your love and respect, a person’s own behaviour is what leads them to receive love and respect.” 

– NK Walia

I found his words so poignant, beyond just the immediate context that we were speaking about.

We generate the love and respect that we receive as a function of our own actions and behaviour.

When we look at the world through the limited lens of our fears, we take a very narrow and transactional view of the world and behave in a very limited, measured way:

We think that others must respect us before we serve them, before we show them our heart and offer them our greatest gifts.

We expect that they must love us before we show them love, that they must make us feel good before we show them kindness, compassion and understanding.

Or we believe that we have to do more, achieve more, show more ‘smartness’, before (and so that) we will be respected.

Or that we must extend ourselves endlessly and give more to others than we reasonably can, before (and so that) we will be loved.

Our actions are driven by fear and doubt and guilt and shame, or anger and arrogance and self-righteousness...

We don’t show our best selves, we ignore our needs and desires, we hide our talents, we hold back our expression, we refuse to be loving and kind….

In every case, our own actions severely limit the love and respect that we consequently receive. It is our responsibility to lead the way to our love and respect. Others follow our lead: If we don’t respect our own needs and boundaries, others can’t see those boundaries. If we don’t share our compassion, our talents, our desires, our ideas, others don’t know we have them!

When we hold back our love and respect, we inevitably cause conflict, resentment, struggle or pain. Which then causes our fears to kick in further and drive us to act even further in the contrary direction by holding back our love and respect! Which leads to us receiving even less love and respect! And so on it goes, this vicious fear cycle taking us further and further away from our heart, and from that of others.

It is actually unimaginably simple to receive love and respect. The secret is that we must give it. Without condition. Without excuse.

There really is nothing that has to happen first. There is nothing that someone else needs to do for us first before we allow ourselves to give love and respect. And there really is nothing we need to do first before we allow ourselves to receive love and respect. 

All we need to do is to be loving and respectful. To others, and to ourselves. 

I urge you to try it: this week, give your love and respect fearlessly – to yourself and others, despite your concerns, and notwithstanding your fears about how it may turn out. I would love to hear from you and know how you created more love and respect in your life….without fear.